A FRIEND OF TIM'S
It was another of those mornings on which the fog maybe did not come.
Roger and his guests were in the limousine again; it seemed to John
Quincy that they had left it only a few minutes before. So it must have
seemed to the chauffeur too as, sleepy-eyed, he hurried them toward the
water-front.
"By the way, John Quincy," Roger said, "you'll want to change your money
before you go aboard."
John Quincy gathered his wandering thoughts. "Oh, yes, of course," he
answered.
Roger smiled. "Just what sort of money would you like to change it for?"
he inquired.
"Why--" began John Quincy. He stopped. "Why, I always thought--"
"Don't pay any attention to Roger," Barbara laughed. "He's spoofing
you." She was fresh and blooming, a little matter like three A. M. made
no difference to her. "Only about one person out of a thousand in this
country knows that Hawaii is a part of the United States, and the fact
annoys us deeply over in the Islands. Dear old Roger was trying to get
you in wrong with me by enrolling you among the nine hundred and
ninety-nine."
"Almost did it, too," chuckled Roger.
"Nonsense," said Barbara. "John Quincy is too intelligent. He's not
like that congressman who wrote a letter to 'the American Consul at
Honolulu.'"
"Did one of them do that?" smiled John Quincy.
"He certainly did. We almost gave up the struggle after that. Then there
was the senator who came out on a junket, and began a speech with: 'When
I get home to my country--' Some one in the audience shouted: 'You're
there now, you big stiff!' It wasn't elegant, of course, but it
expressed our feeling perfectly. Oh, we're touchy, John Quincy."
"Don't blame you a bit," he told her. "I'll be very careful what I say."
They had reached the Embarcadero, and the car halted before one of the
piers. The chauffeur descended and began to gather up the baggage. Roger
and John Quincy took a share of it, and they traversed the pier-shed to
the gangplank.
"Get along to your office, Roger," Barbara said.
"No hurry," he answered. "I'll go aboard with you, of course."
Amid the confusion of the deck, a party of girls swept down on Barbara,
pretty lively girls of the California brand. John Quincy learned with
some regret that they were there only to see Barbara off. A big
broad-shouldered man in white pushed his way through the crowd.
"Hello there!" he called to Barbara.
"Hello, Harry," she answered. "You, know Roger, don't you? John Quincy,
this is an old friend of mine, Harry Jennison."
Mr. Jennison was extremely good-looking, his face was deeply tanned by
the Island sun, his hair blond and wavy, his gray eyes amused and
cynical. Altogether, he was the type of man women look at twice and
never forget; John Quincy felt himself at once supplanted in the eyes
of Barbara's friends.
Jennison seized the boy's hand in a firm grip. "Sailing too, Mr.
Winterslip?" he inquired. "That's good. Between us we ought to be able
to keep this young woman entertained."
The shore call sounded, and the confusion increased. Along the deck came
a little old lady, followed by a Chinese woman servant. They walked
briskly, and the crowd gave way before them.
"Hello--this is luck," cried Roger. "Madame Maynard--just a moment. I
want you to meet a cousin of mine from Boston." He introduced John
Quincy. "I give him into your charge. Couldn't find a better guide,
philosopher and friend for him if I combed the Islands."
The old lady glanced at John Quincy. Her black eyes snapped. "Another
Winterslip, eh?" she said. "Hawaii's all cluttered up with 'em now.
Well, the more the merrier. I know your aunt."
"Stick close to her, John Quincy," Roger admonished.
She shook her head. "I'm a million years old," she protested. "The boys
don't stick so close any more. They like 'em younger. However, I'll keep
my eye on him. My good eye. Well, Roger, run over some time." And she
moved away.
"A grand soul," said Roger, smiling after her. "You'll like her. Old
missionary family, and her word's law over there."
"Who's this Jennison?" asked John Quincy.
"Him?" Roger glanced over to where Mr. Jennison stood, the center of an
admiring feminine group. "Oh, he's Dan's lawyer. One of the leading
citizens of Honolulu, I believe. John J. Adonis himself, isn't he?" An
officer appeared, herding the reluctant throng toward the gangplank.
"I'll have to leave you, John Quincy. A pleasant journey. When you come
through on your way home, give me a few more days to try to convince you
on my San Francisco offer."
John Quincy laughed. "You've been mighty kind."
"Not at all." Roger shook his hand warmly. "Take care of yourself over
there. Hawaii's a little too much like Heaven to be altogether safe. So
long, my boy, so long."
He moved away. John Quincy saw him kiss Barbara affectionately and with
her friends join the slow procession ashore.
The young man from Boston stepped to the rail. Several hundred voices
were calling admonitions, promises, farewells. With that holiday spirit
so alien to John Quincy's experience, those ashore were throwing
confetti. The streamers grew in number, making a tangle of color, a last
frail bond with the land. The gangplank was taken up, clumsily the
_President Tyler_ began to draw away from the pier. On the topmost deck
a band was playing--_Aloha-oe_, the sweetest, most melancholy song of
good-by ever written. John Quincy was amazed to feel a lump rising in
his throat.
The frail, gay-colored bond was breaking now. A thin veined hand at John
Quincy's side waved a handkerchief. He turned to find Mrs. Maynard.
There were tears on her cheeks.
"Silly old woman," she said. "Sailed away from this town a hundred and
twenty-eight times. Actual count--I keep a diary. Cried every time. What
about? I don't know."
The ship was well out in the harbor now. Barbara came along, Jennison
trailing her. The girl's eyes were wet.
"An emotional lot, we Islanders," said the old lady. She put her arm
about the girl's slim waist. "Here's another one of 'em. Living way off
the way we do, any good-by at all--it saddens us." She and Barbara moved
on down the deck.
Jennison stopped. His eyes were quite dry. "First trip out?" he
inquired.
"Oh, yes," replied John Quincy.
"Hope you'll like us," Jennison said. "Not Massachusetts, of course, but
we'll do our best to make you feel at home. It's a way we have with
strangers."
"I'm sure I shall have a bully time," John Quincy remarked. But he felt
somewhat depressed. Three thousand miles from Beacon Street--and moving
on! He waved to some one he fancied might be Roger on the dock, and went
to find his stateroom.
He learned that he was to share his cabin with two missionaries. One was
a tall, gloomy old man with a lemon-colored face--an honored veteran of
the foreign field named Upton. The other was a ruddy-cheeked boy whose
martyrdom was still before him. John Quincy suggested drawing lots for a
choice of berths, but even this mild form of gambling appeared
distasteful to these emissaries of the church.
"You boys take the berths," said Upton. "Leave me the couch. I don't
sleep well anyhow." His tone was that of one who prefers to suffer.
John Quincy politely objected. After further discussion it was settled
that he was to have the upper berth, the old man the lower, and the boy
the couch. The Reverend Mr. Upton seemed disappointed. He had played
the role of martyr so long he resented seeing any one else in the part.
The Pacific was behaving in a most unfriendly manner, tossing the great
ship about as though it were a piece of driftwood. John Quincy decided
to dispense with lunch, and spent the afternoon reading in his berth. By
evening he felt better, and under the watchful and somewhat disapproving
eyes of the missionaries, arrayed himself carefully for dinner.
His name being Winterslip, he had been invited to sit at the captain's
table. He found Madame Maynard, serene and twinkling, at the captain's
right, Barbara at his left, and Jennison at Barbara's side. It appeared
that oddly enough there was an aristocracy of the Islands, and John
Quincy, while he thought it quaint there should be such distinctions in
an outpost like Hawaii, took his proper place as a matter of course.
Mrs. Maynard chatted brightly of her many trips over this route.
Suddenly she turned to Barbara. "How does it happen, my dear," she
asked, "that you're not on the college boat?"
"All booked up," Barbara explained.
"Nonsense," said the frank old lady. "_You_ could have got on. But
then"--she looked meaningly toward Jennison--"I presume this ship was
not without its attraction."
The girl flushed slightly and made no reply.
"What," John Quincy inquired, "is the college boat?"
"So many children from Hawaii at school on the mainland," the old lady
explained, "that every June around this time they practically fill a
ship. We call it the college boat. This year it's the _Matsonia_. She
left San Francisco to-day at noon."
"I've got a lot of friends aboard her," Barbara said. "I do wish we
could beat her in. Captain, what are the chances?"
"Well, that depends," replied the captain cautiously.
"She isn't due until Tuesday morning," Barbara persisted. "Wouldn't it
be a lark if you could land us the night before? As a favor to me,
Captain."
"When you look at me like that," smiled the officer, "I can only say
that I'll make a supreme effort. I'm just as eager as you to make port
on Monday--it would mean I could get off to the Orient that much
sooner."
"Then it's settled," Barbara beamed.
"It's settled that we'll try," he said. "Of course, if I speed up
there's always the chance I may arrive off Honolulu after sundown, and
be compelled to lay by until morning. That would be torture for you."
"I'll risk it," Barbara smiled. "Wouldn't dear old dad be pleased if I
should burst upon his vision Monday evening?"
"My dear girl," the captain said gallantly, "any man would be pleased to
have you burst upon his vision any time."
There was, John Quincy reflected, much in what the captain said. Up to
that moment there had been little of the romantic in his relations with
girls; he was accustomed to look upon them merely as tennis or golf
opponents or a fourth at bridge. Barbara would demand a different
classification. There was an enticing gleam in her blue eyes, a hint of
the eternal feminine in everything she did or said, and John Quincy was
no wooden man. He was glad that when he left the dinner table, she
accompanied him.
They went on deck and stood by the rail. Night had fallen, there was no
moon, and it seemed to John Quincy that the Pacific was the blackest,
angriest ocean he had ever seen. He stood gazing at it gloomily.
"Homesick, John Quincy?" Barbara asked. One of his hands was resting on
the rail. She laid her own upon it.
He nodded. "It's a funny thing. I've been abroad a lot, but I never felt
like this. When the ship left port this morning, I nearly wept."
"It's not so very funny," she said gently. "This is an alien world
you're entering now. Not Boston, John Quincy, nor any other old,
civilized place. Not the kind of place where the mind rules. Out here
it's the heart that charts our course. People you're fond of do the
wildest, most unreasonable things, simply because their minds are
sleeping and their hearts are beating fast. Just--just remember, please,
John Quincy."
There was an odd note of wistfulness in her voice. Suddenly at their
side appeared the white-clad figure of Harry Jennison.
"Coming for a stroll, Barbara?" he inquired.
For a moment she did not reply. Then she nodded. "Yes," she said. And
called over her shoulder as she went: "Cheer up, John Quincy."
He watched her go, reluctantly. She might have stayed to assuage his
loneliness. But there she walked along the dim deck, close to Jennison's
side.
After a time, he sought the smoking-room. It was deserted, but on one of
the tables lay a copy of the _Boston Transcript_. Delighted, John Quincy
pounced upon it, as Robinson Crusoe might have pounced on news from
home.
The issue was ten days old, but no matter. He turned at once to the
financial pages. There it was, like the face of a well-beloved friend,
the record of one day's trading on the Stock Exchange. And up in one
corner, the advertisement of his own banking house, offering an issue of
preferred stock in a Berkshire cotton mill. He read eagerly, but with an
odd detached feeling. He was gone, gone from that world, away out here
on a black ocean bound for picture-book islands. Islands where, not so
long ago, brown tribes had battled, brown kings ruled. There seemed no
link with that world back home, those gay-colored streamers of confetti
breaking so readily had been a symbol. He was adrift. What sort of port
would claim him in the end?
He threw the paper down. The Reverend Mr. Upton entered the
smoking-room.
"I left my newspaper here," he explained. "Ah--did you care to look at
it?"
"Thank you, I have," John Quincy told him.
The old man picked it up in a great bony hand. "I always buy a
_Transcript_ when I get the chance," he said. "It carries me back. You
know, I was born in Salem, over seventy years ago."
John Quincy stared at him. "You've been a long time out here?" he asked.
"More than fifty years in the foreign field," answered the old man. "I
was one of the first to go to the South Seas. One of the first to carry
the torch down there--and a dim torch it was, I'm afraid. Afterward I
was transferred to China." John Quincy regarded him with a new interest.
"By the way, sir," the missionary continued, "I once met another
gentleman named Winterslip. Mr. Daniel Winterslip."
"Really?" said John Quincy. "He's a cousin of mine. I'm to visit him in
Honolulu."
"Yes? I heard he had returned to Hawaii, and prospered. I met him just
once--in the 'eighties, it was, on a lonely island in the Gilbert group.
It was--rather a turning point in his life, and I have never forgotten."
John Quincy waited to hear more, but the old missionary moved away.
"I'll go and enjoy my _Transcript_," he smiled. "The church news is very
competently handled."
John Quincy rose and went aimlessly outside. A dreary scene, the swish
of turbulent waters, dim figures aimless as himself, an occasional
ship's officer hurrying by. His stateroom opened directly on the deck,
and he sank into a steamer chair just outside the door.
In the distance he saw his room steward, weaving his way in and out of
the cabins under his care. The man was busy with his last duties for the
night, refilling water carafes, laying out towels, putting things
generally to rights.
"Evening, sir," he said as he entered John Quincy's room. Presently he
came and stood in the door, the cabin light at his back. He was a small
man with gold-rimmed eye-glasses and a fierce gray pompadour.
"Everything O. K., Mr. Winterslip?" he inquired.
"Yes, Bowker," smiled John Quincy. "Everything's fine."
"That's good," said Bowker. He switched off the cabin light and stepped
out on to the deck. "I aim to take particular care of you, sir. Saw your
home town on the sailing list. I'm an old Boston man myself."
"Is that so?" said John Quincy cordially. Evidently the Pacific was a
Boston suburb.
"Not born there, I don't mean," the man went on. "But a newspaper man
there for ten years. It was just after I left the University."
John Quincy stared through the dark. "Harvard?" he asked.
"Dublin," said the steward. "Yes, sir--" He laughed an embarrassed
little laugh. "You might not think it now, but the University of Dublin,
Class of 1901. And after that, for ten years, working in Boston on the
_Gazette_--reporting, copy desk, managing editor for a time. Maybe I
bumped into you there--at the Adams House bar, say, on a night before a
football game."
"Quite possible," admitted John Quincy. "One bumped into so many people
on such occasions."
"Don't I know it?" Mr. Bowker leaned on the rail, in reminiscent mood.
"Great times, sir. Those were the good old days when a newspaper man who
wasn't tanked up was a reproach to a grand profession. The _Gazette_ was
edited mostly from a place called the Arch Inn. We'd bring our copy to
the city editor there--he had a regular table--a bit sloppy on top, but
his desk. If we had a good story, maybe he'd stand us a cocktail."
John Quincy laughed.
"Happy days," continued the Dublin graduate, with a sigh. "I knew every
bartender in Boston well enough to borrow money. Were you ever in that
place in the alley back of the Tremont Theater--?"
"Tim's place," suggested John Quincy, recalling an incident of college
days.
"Yeah, bo. Now you're talking. I wonder what became of Tim. Say, and
there was that place on Boylston--but they're all gone now, of course.
An old pal I met in 'Frisco was telling me it would break your heart to
see the cobwebs on the mirrors back in Beantown. Gone to the devil, just
like my profession. The newspapers go on consolidating, doubling up,
combining the best features of both, and an army of good men go on the
town. Good men and true, moaning about the vanished days and maybe
landing in jobs like this one of mine." He was silent for a moment.
"Well, sir, anything I can do for you--as a mutual friend of Tim's--"
"As a friend of Tim's," smiled John Quincy, "I'll not hesitate to
mention it."
Sadly Bowker went on down the deck. John Quincy sat lonely again. A
couple passed, walking close, talking in low tones. He recognized
Jennison and his cousin. "Between us we ought to be able to keep this
young woman entertained," Jennison had said. Well, John Quincy
reflected, his portion of the entertainment promised to be small.